25 Weakest and Bad Passwords

A compilation of 25 worst passwords. These passwords are easily guessable and can be cracked by hackers without much efforts. One should never use these strings as passwords.

SplashData is a password management company. In a recent research, they have revealed a list of 25 weakest passwords. These weak passwords that are easy to remember but are easy to guess as well. Easily guessable password should never be used for the obvious reasons. These are bad, really bad, passwords. It is highly recommended that you use strong password for all your online accounts Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and bank or credit card accounts.

SplashData has complied this list of weakest passwords on the basis of online data posted by hackers! Hackers sometimes post stolen passwords online. “Even though each year hacking tools get more sophisticated, thieves still tend to prefer easy targets. Just a little bit more effort in choosing better passwords will go a long way toward making you safer online”, CBS News quoted SplashData chief executive officer, Morgan Slain, as saying.

It is recommended that your password should contain at least 8 characters of mixed type (i.e. a mix of letters, numbers and special characters). It is also a good idea not to keep just one password for everything. Use different passwords for different accounts. Parents should also educate their children about online safety and advice them to use strong passwords. Accounts of unsuspecting people often get hacked because they click on malicious links. You should know how to recognize bad links in order to keep your online accounts safe.

Here is the compiled list of 25 weakest passwords. In the bracket we show the change in the rank of the password compared to the last year’s list.

Weakest Passwords of 2013

This year’s list contains two curious passwords that surprised me. But then I thought I got the reason. These are photoshop and adobe123. I wondered why a lot of people would keep these words as their security codes?

Online Safety is very important. You must be careful about it.

But if you may remember, in 2013 hackers hacked into a large number of accounts of Adobe employees. Then they posted this data. And because SplashData compiles this list from information posted by hackers, these two words ranked high. So, it is clear that a large number of Adobe employees had been using these two words as a key to get into their system/accounts. Let’s see the list now.

123456 (Up 1)

password (Down 1)

12345678 (Unchanged)

qwerty (Up 1)

abc123 (Down 1)

123456789 (New)

111111 (Up 2)

1234567 (Up 5)

iloveyou (Up 2)

adobe123 (New)

123123 (Up 5)

admin (New)

1234567890 (New)

letmein (Down 7)

photoshop (New)

1234 (New)

monkey (Down 11)

shadow (Unchanged)

sunshine (Down 5)

12345 (New)

password1 (Up 4)

princess (New)

azerty (New)

trustno1 (Down 12)

000000 (New)

Ok, so these were the most often used passwords. Needless to say that you MUST NOT use any of these! Now let’s have a look at which passwords made to this list of dubious distinction last year!

Weakest Passwords of 2012

password (Unchanged since last year)

123456 (Unchanged)

12345678 (Unchanged)

abc123 (Up 1)

qwerty (Down 1)

monkey (Unchanged)

letmein (Up 1)

dragon (Up 2)

111111 (Up 3)

baseball (Up 1)

iloveyou (Up 2)

trustno1 (Down 3)

1234567 (Down 6)

sunshine (Up 1)

master (Down 1)

123123 (Up 4)

welcome (New)

shadow (Up 1)

ashley (Down 3)

football (Up 5)

jesus (New)

michael (Up 2)

ninja (New)

mustang (New)

password1 (New)

If you have been using any password given in these lists, I hope now you would wake-up and learn the harsh realities of digital world. Do not take it all for granted. If you do not follow strong password guidelines, you will always run the risk of becoming a victim of hackers. So, please make sure that you’re using an unassailable sequence of characters for a password. And yes, never tell your password to anyone.

Lalit Kumar is the Principal Author and Founder of TechWelkin. He is a web explorer and he enjoys finding useful information on the Internet. He loves to put things together to create a bigger solution. Lalit is passionate about technology, languages and literature. You can contact Lalit via email (techwelkin [at] gmail [dot] com) or Facebook (facebook.com/techwelkin).